RPM

Always use a base coat like opaque white, then shoot your neon craft paint over the base coat it will cover or show up alot better than on a bare lure.

Do yourself a favor and get used to the search feature here, there are tons of comments about that subject, and most recently search "Hunting Action" this is everything you need to know and more, really great reading along with helpful insight. Sorry but it's truly the best advice I can give, it will be a treasure trove of information.

Thanks Dave, I'll see if I can come up with the S action using your peramiters, have a great weekend. Rich

Completely clean your gun, my advise is to put it in a jar of simple green, let it soak, then clean it till it's like new, otherwise it will not perform as needed. Best of luck, stay safe. Rich

Tripple Point Hunting crankbait? Vodkaman Dave sorry it's been a while since I've contributed, been busy, life, family, work and lures. I really enjoy your work, insight and opinions, and Yes I've been able to build a Hunting Style Crankbait using your original thoughts of the Bill starting longer, trimming it to shorter length per lure. I've stumbled onto a lure design that seems to have a few characteristics, deep center section, weight low, shallow runner 5' or less. Now you have my attention again with the Tripple Point Hunting? One thing I would like to clear up for myself is the difference between your thoughts and a few others? You seem to think this can be acheived with everything stationary in a lure, but a few others have the idea it may take a moving mass, weight inside the lure, kinda like the Pre Rapala Wiggle Wart from storm? I have experimented with the later and have used a slowed weight transfer insde the lure to acheive an eratic swimming action, it's hard to replicate becasue so many varibles. I have gone back and re read your posts many times, still trying to learn / understand the theroy? One thing I would like to ask or see is could we all agree on a few peramiters: Body shape, design, material to be balsa, weight of lure and lip design? I'm sure there are others but that would at least get us started in the right direction. The Lure I have built has proven to be a hunting action and duplicatible or at least for me and has proven to swim in an eratic action, the thing I'm missing is I've never tried to acheive the S Style swimming action, I consider that more a swimbait action, not a crankbait action? I would be more than agreeable to use my lure for comparison purpose, so we need to have some consistancy where all the lures, built in the same generic shape are tested and disected to see the similarities as well as the differences in hopes of gathering information to help us get closer to closing the questions of the Hunting Crankbait. I'm really good at developing my own design to my liking but until we determine some sort of standard that we are trying to acheive, it seems there is a distance between all lures and the end result we are trying to acheive? If my reasoning is out of line I opologise and mean no disrespect, just trying to add some leymen terms to a subject close to my heart and would love to get to the bottom of the question, can we make, build and reproduce a Tripple Point Hunting Crankbait on a consistant basis! I for one would love to be able to and I'm sure the fishing world would love to see teh Crankbait Unicorn! I hope you are doing well, and staying safe in these trying time. Best wishes Rich

Good morning I hope everyone is safe during this crazy time. I have a couple of questions and figured someone here might have the answers. I recently read an article about turning regular swimbaits into line thru. Pretty good article here it is: https://www.flwfishing.com/tips/2019-09-10-how-to-make-a-swimbait-a-line-thru Couple of questions: 1. Which 4, 5, & 6" Swimbait molds that have a hook slot do you prefer, like or feel like would give best results for such a project? I've got a few swimbait molds but not many that have hook slot capability so I may have to buy a few new molds. 2. The brass tube the article refers to as the fattube? looks to me this should be an item we could outsource or buy from a supply house in bulk? any ideas on what it actually is? I've recently started fishing swimbaits more, mostly as chatterbait or Jig Trailers but know alot of the FLW Guys on Ky. Lake prefer fishing the bigger, West Coast ( Ca. ) type swimbaits in recent years. Anyway, Thanky you for taking time to read this and hoping someone here can steer me int he right direction. Have a great weeeknd. Rich

Epoxy will work for sure, you might even want to mix in some micro balloons to add some white color to your epoxy, but epoxy will certainly hold the line tie / thru wire solid and provide a water tight bond / seal.

The bend is going to be very critical as well as the hole drilled below the lip slot, I've found between the size hole I drill in my lip, and the way or spot I bend my wire, I can still get a very nice fit to the bottom of the lip, it just takes some practice. I would also make sure the hole drilled in bait below the lip was not to big as well. Best of luck, don't know much about Muskie Lures, but would like to see a few once you get them figured out.

I also use a one drilled hole method. Takes a little practice to get the feel, but effective. I Dremel a slot or groove in the back of my lip, ( the part that will be epoxied into the bait) put the line tie through the hole, bend and run line tie under bill and to the back of the bill snug to the bottom of bill, then another bend tight to the bill again, and the bend runs through the Dremel groove bent upwards and back toward the front of the bill. Once tight & snug to the bottom of bill and where you want it, I then cut off the access length of the wire and discard it and now the bill is ready to be installed with the line tie in it's place, if done properly the line tie will be very taught, snug and will stay in place nicely by itself. I hope that helps, and Merry Christmas as well.

Will do, didn't mean to get off the subject, just sparked an interest if you know what I mean. Thanks Dave

Easy now! LOL But on a more serious note. The Lure duplicator machine has my interest? Seriously A few years ago I thought I would like to own one, and searched for a couple of years only to find out that there were only a few made ( production ) machines? Then to find out the ones in operation cost 15K-30K Depending on who you talked to and there were none available or not being used. Not to stir the pot, but in some circles that would make me a production crankbait builder would it not? Anyway I've moved on past that urge but if a lure duplicator became available at a much more reasonable price I'm sure there would be a market for it. I've seen the homemade duplicators on YouTube, seen one a guy built based of a router table system, but a real true balsa duplicator ? now that's something to sit up in your seat about.

Dave your welcome, and yes I was reading, watching like a kid watches a candy jar. LOL I was also able to confirm and prove your theory and implement it on my own cranks, even able to resurrect some culls with great pleasure. Now I build my cranks with a different approach and much better results on new designs / prototypes. I was guilty for a long time to not interact, and couldn't agree more. Feedback is a good thing. Thanks again.

Vodkaman, Thanks for chiming in, and sorry if there were issues in the past, which I was unaware of. I mentioned your name earlier because after reading your many posts on vortex and hunting cranks a light went off for me. So with that Thank you for your work and contribution. I've been building wood plugs since 2007. Like many I struggled with lots of rejects which is the norm when trying to develop a lure from scratch and I never kept track of the ratio, but is was way worse before I finally got it. Forward to today, after many years of trail and error and all the research done here, at the lake and countless hours spent in communications I've been able to understand what makes a crankbait run effectively. I do not claim to build the best, never will but as a tournament angler for many years I've come to the realization you cant please everyone, that's why we have so many choices in our everyday life. What I have been able to obtain is a better understanding of what I wanted my crankbaits to do, Versus the production cranks I was fishing before I started this journey some years ago, and in that I owe your work and putting it out there for us to read a lot of respect, it helped me tremendously. Thank you again and Thanks to a lot of members here for their contributions as well, it's a great site with a wealth of information if your willing to invest the time to absorb it all. For those reading this and not following why I state this, you need to read the huge discussions on Hunting Crankbaits, I think there are several posts on this subject, but as my memory serves me, Dave "Vodkaman" posted his final belief of what's makes a crankbait hunt in very good detail, and it triggered me to finally understand why I was not getting the results I wanted. I was even able to go back and relook, & modify some of my culls to make them perform like I had originally hoped. Building a crankbait from scratch is a very time consuming venture, and one I assure you will not make you rich, To be brutally honest it would scare the heck out of me if I were to count all my time, effort, materials, and try to put a price on what it takes to build, design a handcrafted crankbait, but it does offer great rewards. I urge anyone with the passion to pursue building your own, or at least look into it. This all started many years ago when I could not find a lure I wanted so I built my own. I've had several buddies who thought they wanted to be crankbait builders, they start of strong, and most decide it's not their cup of tea, heck they would rather have me build them one. LOL Anyway, I have enjoyed this site, membership and knowledge very much over the years and hope to be able to keep a high standard of respect, fellowship and help new members when I can, so I'm glad to see the discussions continue in hopes it will shed some light for someone. Wishing everyone Merry Christmas Rich

Tally there are still quite a few guys building their own, Custom Plug makers if you will, and yes the site has changed a lot over the past 10 years. Do a search on Hunting Cranks, Vodkaman has done a lot of extensive research & development and quite a few guys contributed with valuable information, the archives on this site are full of so much information it cannot be explained. The thing I see these days like someone mentioned is peoples time, a lot of people today do not have the time to commit in todays hectic world, then you factor the time and effort it takes, and the steps needed to build a plug the right way not many will invest that for what they get back, although there are still a few diehard Crankbait junkies left. LOL I'll tell you about it sometime when we talk. I have enjoyed this site & members knowledge tremendously and it has helped me as well as many other guys I know. I've also enjoyed your return, so welcome back. I look forward to talking to you soon, as well as keeping up with your informative posts. Thanks Rich

Tally, are you diluting the simple green or using it straight out of the bottle. I buy Simple green in gallon jugs and use it a lot around the shop. Thanks for the tip, I'm going to start using it on my air brushes.